September, 1318

One month later

The English/Scottish Borderlands

 

Helena bolted upright, a scream clawing up her throat.

Blessedly, she managed to swallow her cry of panic before it could escape.

Lord Geoffrey de Neville slept only a few paces and one stone wall away from her chamber. If she had woken him, Helena knew with a chilling certainty that he would beat her again, as he had last night. But a fear far more powerful than Geoffrey’s fists stabbed in the pit of Helena’s stomach.

She had just seen her death—at Geoffrey’s hands.

It was not a mere nightmare that had ripped her from sleep and had her heart racing like a runaway stallion as she sat huddled and panting in the darkness of her chamber. Nay, she knew the difference between a nightmare and a vision.

Her visions were always cast in an eerie blue haze, like mist lit by cold moonlight. They foretold terrible events, sometimes days ahead of time, and sometimes months. But no matter when the images crept into her sleeping mind, they always came to pass. It had been that way since Helena had seen her mother’s death twelve years past.

And she had just witnessed, with the searing clarity that always came with a vision, Geoffrey lowering a torch to her skirts and setting her on fire.

Helena lifted a trembling hand to her face. One of her eyes was swollen halfway shut. Her jawline was tender and her bottom lip throbbed where it had split under Geoffrey’s fist earlier that night.

In the grips of a cold rage, he’d beaten her savagely, but he hadn’t intended to kill her—nay, not until tomorrow, when he would claim what he truly wanted. Then there would be naught stopping him from killing her.

He must have hatched a plan to name her a witch once he’d secured Craigmoor Castle for himself—that would explain why he’d burned her in her vision. He knew. Despite a lifetime of keeping her curse a secret, he’d learned the truth about her visions. Whether he waited a day or a decade after tomorrow, he would light her on fire and watch her burn. The visions were never wrong.

Unless…

Helena glanced at the stone wall separating her from Geoffrey, who slept soundly in his guest chamber.

Nay, she would never be able to overpower him physically, even if she took advantage of his slumber. Despite his thinning blond hair and the lines that had begun to etch his face, he was still a strong man. He’d proven that earlier this evening with the beating he’d given her. She’d tried to defend herself with the maneuvers Adam had taught her, but Geoffrey had easily overpowered her.

There was only one hope, and it was slimmer than a single strand of hair.

She could run.

All of her past attempts to save others from what she’d seen in her visions had failed. Helena swallowed hard as her mind skittered back to her mother and brother. She’d seen their deaths, yet she hadn’t been able to alter the fate her visions had shown her.

As a girl of eight, she hadn’t understood the haunting blue dreams that had shown her mother falling ill.

By the time she’d foreseen Adam cut down on the battlefield defending Craigmoor, their adopted home in the Borderlands, she knew what it meant. Her brother wouldn’t listen to her, though. He knew too, for besides her father, her brother was the only one who was aware of her curse. Yet he’d left the safety of the castle’s walls to meet the Scots’ attack, telling her gently that his life was in God’s hands. Those were his last words to her.

Adam hadn’t wanted his life—or his death—ruled by his knowledge of her visions. She hadn’t been able to sway him.

But now she’d seen her own death.

She could act.

Helena eased out from under the covers, listening for any stirrings coming from the chamber next to hers. Slowly, she set her feet on the cold stone floor and rose from the mattress.

On silent, bare feet, Helena moved to the large oak armoire in the corner of her chamber. She dressed in the dark, picking her thickest wool gown and sturdiest stockings and boots. Autumn had only just begun nipping the air here in the Borderlands, but where she planned to go, no doubt she could expect far harsher conditions.

She slung a heavy, fur-lined cloak around her shoulders, then slipped a satchel over her head. She couldn’t risk stopping in Craigmoor’s kitchens before departing, but mayhap she could collect the last of the summer’s berries or fall’s wild tubers in the bag as she trekked.

With one last long look around her chamber, she crept toward the door. Despite the danger of having to slink by Geoffrey’s guest quarters unnoticed, Helena sent up thanks to God that Geoffrey hadn’t claimed her father’s chamber as his own yet. It was fit for the lord of the castle, a position Geoffrey craved with a hunger that approached madness, but Helena’s father still lay upon his large bed, growing cold.

A sob caught in her throat at that, but she forced it down with a painful swallow. Her father had only breathed his last a few short hours earlier, but she willed herself to be grateful. Because his body was still being prepared for his final rest in Craigmoor’s soil, Geoffrey could not move into his chamber yet—which gave her one slim chance to escape.

As quietly as possible, she eased her chamber door open and slipped into the corridor outside. Holding her breath and fixing her gaze on Geoffrey’s chamber, she closed the door behind her. She hurried toward the spiraling stone stairs, all the while expecting Geoffrey to seize her from behind at any moment and make her vision a reality.

Blessedly, the entire castle seemed to be asleep. She hated herself for her cowardice. The people of Craigmoor, who were mostly Scottish, hadn’t asked for their home to be seized by their enemy, the English King Edward, twelve years ago. Nor had they asked for the castle to be granted to Helena’s father, Lord Walter Quincey, so that it could be held against the Scots.

Nevertheless, they had endured the changes and even taken Helena under their wing. She’d been a scared girl of eight when her family had left their home in central England for this enormous, foreboding Borderland stronghold. Her mother had died a few short months after the move, leaving Helena with her father and brother amidst a sea of strange Scottish faces.

Yet Craigmoor had become her home, a place of love and light despite those early hardships, in no small part because of the kindness and generosity of the Scots who remained at the castle to serve under her father.

And now she was abandoning them to Lord Geoffrey de Neville. Though he’d taken pains to cast himself as a man of chivalry and honor when he’d arrived at Craigmoor six months past, Helena now knew the truth of his nature. She could only pray that the people of Craigmoor did not suffer as greatly as she had—and as she would have—in Geoffrey’s grasp.

As she made her way to her father’s chamber, she sent up a silent prayer for all the souls she was abandoning.

Was she wrong to flee? Her feet slowed as guilt and helplessness swamped her. Desperate longing for Adam and her father’s guidance cut sharp and keen like a knife through her.

She had no reason to believe she could outrun the fate her vision had shown her. No one ever had before.

But nor could she surrender her life to Geoffrey without a fight. Aye, running was a coward’s solution, but with fear twisting her mind into knots, she couldn’t come up with a better plan. Adam was not here to help—he’d lain in the cold, dark soil of the Borderlands for six long months. And her father would join her brother just as soon as his body was prepared for its final rest. No one could help her now—she had to help herself.

Helena pushed her feet into motion once more and took the final steps to her father’s chamber. When she eased the door open, moonlight fell through the open shutters, illuminating the room.

Ida knelt beside the large bed that held Lord Quincey, murmuring a prayer.

The Scotswoman lifted her graying head at Helena’s arrival, then sucked in a breath as her gaze landed on Helena’s battered face.

“Milady, what in—”

Helena hurriedly closed the door behind her and stepped into the chamber. She held up a hand to hush Ida.

“It matters not.”

Withholding the truth—and in such a brusque manner—from Ida made Helena’s heart twist painfully. The lady’s maid had only tended to Helena’s mother for a few short months before the lady of the keep had died. Ida had seen Helena through the darkest hours of her grief, and had given her all the love and caring of a true mother after that.

But the fact was, Helena didn’t have time to explain things to Ida—not if she hoped to escape with her life.

Ida rose to her feet but remained beside the bed, a deep crease between her brows. Helena’s gaze trailed to where her father lay, motionless in death.

The maids had been working to rid the chamber of all traces of Lord Quincey’s death. Even with the shutters drawn back, the scent of incense and candle wax lingered in the air. The bed linens, which only that morning had been twisted and damp from the fever wracking her father’s body, were clean and straight now.

Still, death’s shadow hung over the chamber. Lord Quincey had been washed by Ida and the other maids, but he had yet to be shrouded by the white winding sheet in preparation for his burial.

He was so still now, and so pale. Helena could perfectly picture his face animated in a warm smile, or turned down in a frown when she and Adam had gotten into trouble.

The fever that had claimed him had made him rave for days before he sank into death’s embrace, making him seem more like a wild animal than the kind, loving father she knew. It was in that frenzied madness that he’d told Geoffrey of Helena’s curse.

Her father would have protected her secret with his life if he’d been in his right mind, for he, Adam, and Helena had made a pact never to speak of her visions. They’d feared that knowledge of the curse could be used to brand her a witch and have her hanged, beheaded, or burned. Her vision of Geoffrey had proved their worst fears right.

Pushing the memories of her father’s final days aside, Helena willed herself to speak.

“I…I would like a moment alone with him,” she mumbled, tears pricking in her eyes in shame at the second lie she’d told Ida in as many minutes.

Ida dutifully moved away from the bed, but when she was even with Helena, she paused, her kind brown eyes sweeping the damage to her face. She must have known it was Geoffrey’s doing, but she did not speak for a long moment.

“Yer father,” Ida said at last, her voice soft and thick with emotion. “He…he would have wanted ye to survive, milady. He would have wanted ye to do whatever it took.”

The breath caught in Helena’s throat. Ida couldn’t possibly know what Helena planned, and yet the Scotswoman’s words made her heart swell nigh painfully.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Ida squeezed her hand, her eyes shimmering in the moonlight, before she released her grip and slipped from the chamber.

Helena dragged in a ragged breath, blinking the burning tears from her eyes. She could not hesitate any longer.

Behind one of the enormous woven tapestries hanging next to the bed lay her last chance of survival.

Averting her gaze from the bed, Helena lifted the tapestry and began feeling along the stones for the latch that opened the secret door to the tunnel.

This was her family’s other great secret. Her father had discovered the hidden passageway by accident many years ago and had told Helena and Adam of its existence, swearing them to secrecy.

“If you are ever in trouble, Helena,” he’d said, gripping her shoulders and staring hard into her eyes. “If anyone learns of your curse, or if Adam and I are in trouble, you are to run, do you hear me?” His moss-green eyes had turned from stern to sad then, but he’d made her promise to keep the secret of the tunnel—and to use it if need be.

Now both Adam and her father were dead, and Helena was the only one left to be the keeper of her family’s secrets. Adam would have told her to be brave, to fight to survive. Her father would have hugged her close, then told her to run as fast and as long as she could until she was safe.

As Helena stepped into the cold, pitch-black tunnel, she was not sure she would ever be safe again, no matter how far and long she ran, for she was not just fleeing from Geoffrey. She was fleeing from her vision, from fate itself. Sooner or later, didn’t fate always catch its prey?

Mayhap, she thought as she secured the hidden door behind her and placed her hand on the tunnel’s damp, mossy wall to guide her. Mayhap fate would find her eventually, but she would at least make it fight to claim her soul.

She would run as far as she could—all the way to the farthest corner of Scotland if she had to. And mayhap—just mayhap—she could outrun her fate.